Novel Recursive Technique for Finding the Optimal Solution of the Nurse Scheduling Problem
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2019
Abstract
Solving the Nurse Scheduling problem Is a major research area in Operations Research. Due to it being an NP-Hard problem, most researchers develop a heuristic solution for it The NSP has several constraints that need to be satisfied: several mandatory “hard” constraints that reflect hospital requirements, and several optional “soft constraints" that reflect the nurses' preferences. In this paper, we present a recursive solution to the problem that makes use of those constraints to shrink the search space and obtain results in a reasonable amount of lime. We present two variations of the solution. a nurse-by-nurse method of building the optimal schedule, and a shift-by-shift approach. Both variations were implemented and tested with various scenarios and the shift-by-shift solution provided much better results. The solution can also be modified easily to provide fair long-term scheduling,
Recommended Citation
Senbel, S. (2019). Novel recursive technique for finding the optimal solution of the nurse scheduling problem. In K. Arai, R. Bhatia, R., & S. Kapoor (Eds.), Intelligent Computing: Proceedings of the Computing Conference (pp. 359-375). Cham: Springer.
Comments
ISBN 9783030228712 (e-book)
Includes the proceedings of the Computing Conference 2019 held in London, United Kingdom, on July 16–17, 2019.